Terms of Business
- Accepting our Terms of Business
- About Us
- Product Providers
- Compensation Arrangements
Cancelling Your Insurance
If you want to, you may cancel your plan within 30 days of delivery of the product being delivered to your home, please contact the retailer you bought the product from. If you have not made a claim, you will get a full refund of your premium. The only exception to this is if the product has been treated with a stain protector as part of the plan. In this case, you will be entitled to a refund of only 75% of the premium you have paid.
If you want to cancel your plan after 30 days or more after the product has been delivered, email policy.admin@guardsman.co.uk or write to us at Guardsman, Innovation Centre, 99 Park Drive, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire, OX14 4RY. If you have not made a claim, you will be entitled to a refund of a proportion of the premium you have paid. The refund will be based on the number of complete months remaining on your plan from the date you asked us to cancel it. You will also have to pay an administration fee of £10 which we will take from your refund. If the product has been treated with a stain protector as part of your Plan, we will take a further £10 from any refund.
Cancellations will not be backdated. If we have settled a claim, you will not be entitled to any refund of premium. If there has been an incident likely to give rise to a claim, you will not be entitled to a refund until we have decided whether we should settle that claim. If we decide not to settle the claim, the date of cancellation will be the date you asked us to cancel your plan.
Fees & Charges
Our Earnings (Commission Rates)
In return for placing business with insurers, underwriters, and other product providers we normally receive a commission from them which is a percentage of the annual premium that you are charged with. You are entitled, at any time, to request information regarding any commission which we may have received as a result of placing your insurance business.
Please be assured that at no time will the way in which we are remunerated conflict with our responsibilities to meet your needs.
Documents sent by email
If you receive your policy by email or post, we will send all documentation, including certificate of insurance to the email or postal address you have supplied to us. Please note your insurer has the right to cancel a policy by giving you seven days’ notice which would be communicated by email. It is therefore important that we hold the correct email address for you so please contact us if you change your email address.
Protecting your information
All personal data held about you will be collected, processed and stored securely in accordance with the Data Protection Legislation. When we refer to the Data Protection Legislation, we mean:
- the Data Protection Act 2018 (“the 2018 Act”) and the United Kingdom General Data Protection Regulation (“UK GDPR”) and any national implementing laws, regulations and secondary legislation, as amended or updated from time to time, in the UK;
- the General Data Protection Regulation EU 2016/679 (“GDPR”) where applicable;
- the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (“PECR”); and
- any applicable successor legislation.
We may share your personal data with legitimate third parties where the disclosure is made at your request; or to validate your insurance contract where the law requires us to; or where a mutual third party requires us to validate your insurance contract. Our regulators, for example, the FCA, may ask us to provide it with access to our customer records in order that it may carry out a review of our activities.
Under Data Protection Legislation, you have various privacy rights in respect of your personal data including the right to access and the right to find out about how your data is collected, used and stored. We have set out your rights and how we use your personal data in more detail in our Privacy Notice available on our website www.guardsman.co.uk If you have any questions about how we use your personal data, please contact our Data Protection Officer at The Data Protection Officer, Acasta European Insurance Company Limited, Unit 1, 124 Irish Town, Gibraltar, GX11 1AA or email dpo@acastaeurope.co.uk
How to Make a Claim
If you need to make a claim under your plan, please visit the ‘Make A Claim’ section of our website or telephone Guardsman on 0345 128 1240 or 01235 448820. Our opening hours are 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays).
You must make any claim as soon as possible, and always within 28 days of the event giving rise to a claim. Any delay may mean that we will not pay the claim, or that we will reduce the claim or the amount of cover. We may ask to inspect the product to help assess your claim.
We will ask you to provide photographs of the damage so we can assess your claim more quickly.
If you already have an ongoing claim with us, any new damage would need to be separately reported. Our technician will be instructed to only carry out the repair needed for each reported claim.
Once an appointment has been confirmed for a technician to come to your home, if you want to cancel the appointment you must give 24hours' notice. If you don’t you will have to pay a fee of £10. Another appointment will be confirmed once the fee has been paid.
We will settle valid claims by sending you a specialised stain remover product (if appropriate), or cleaning or repairing your damaged product as we see fit. If the product cannot be satisfactorily cleaned or repaired, we will replace the part or product. The following will then apply:
- if we agree to replace the product or part of it, we may take possession of the original item or part;
- we do not guarantee that any repair or replacement will be an exact match of grain, sheen, pattern or colour. Any replacement parts will be matched to an inconspicuous area of the product and our liability is limited to the best job a Guardsman approved technician could do in the circumstances;
- if, after we have provided a replacement, we do not take possession of the replaced item for ourselves, you will be responsible for its disposal;
- if we replace the product, that replacement will not be covered under your plan;
- you must co-operate with us when we arrange any delivery or collection with you; and
- any replacement will be of a similar standard, specification and style as your original product, if the limit of cover allows this.
If, when you make a valid claim under your plan, there is another insurance policy in force which covers the same damage or expense, we may seek to recover some or all of our cost from the other insurer. You must give us any information we may need to help us to do this.
Complaints
If your expectations are not met or you are dissatisfied in some way, we would like to know. The following guidelines will ensure your complaint is dealt with as efficiently as possible.
If you wish to make a complaint about the conduct of the sale of your policy, including any information provided as part of the sale, please contact the retailer who sold you the policy (if and where applicable).
Guardsman handles complaints under your policy on the insurer’s behalf. If you wish to make a complaint of this nature, please contact the Complaints Team at Guardsman Industries Limited by using one of the options below:
- by writing to: Guardsman Industries Limited, Innovation Centre, 99 Park Drive, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxfordshire OX14 4RY
- by emailing: complaints@guardsman.co.uk
- by telephone: 0345 128 1240 (UK only) +44 (0)1235 444751. Our opening hours are 9am-5pm, Monday to Friday (excluding bank holidays)
Please quote your policy reference number or claim number so that your enquiry can be dealt with quickly.
We will conduct a full investigation into your complaint, giving it careful consideration and ensuring it is handled fairly.
We strive to resolve all complaints on receipt and if we are able to address your concerns within three business days of us receiving your complaint, we will send you a Summary Resolution Communication to confirm the complaint is resolved.
If we are unable to resolve your complaint within three business days, we will:
- send you an acknowledgement letter within five business days of us receiving your complaint;
- conduct a thorough investigation;
- keep you updated on the progress of your complaint; and
- write to you with our findings and final response within 8 weeks of receiving your complaint.
In some cases we may need to spend a little longer investigating your complaint and may require more than 8 weeks, if this is the case we will keep you updated and let you know when we expect to be able to give you our findings and final response.
Financial Ombudsman Service
We will do everything we can to resolve your complaint internally; however, if you are still unhappy with our response to your complaint, or we have not resolved it within 8 weeks, you have the right to refer your complaint to the Financial Ombudsman Service.
The Financial Ombudsman Service offers a free independent service to help with financial services complaints.
If you want the Financial Ombudsman Service to investigate your complaint, you must refer it to them within six months of the date of our response.
You can contact them at:
Further information regarding the Financial Ombudsman Service is available at www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk
IMPORTANT: The Financial Ombudsman Service will expect you to have followed the above procedure before they accept Your case.
The complaints handling arrangements above is without prejudice to your right to commence a legal action in accordance with your contractual rights. Please remember to include your full name and full postal address in all correspondence.
Law and jurisdiction
These Terms of Business shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English Law and shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.
